When he reached New York City on May 26, 1928, it took Oklahoman Andy Payne just over 573 hours of running time to win an epic cross-country footrace that had begun in Los Angeles, California. Dubbed the Bunion Derby, the grueling 3400-mile race was a promotional stunt designed to advertise the newly built Route 66 highway. Payne, a twenty-year-old Cherokee farm boy, ran through blistering desert heat and snowstorms, wearing out five pairs of shoes to win the twenty-five thousand dollar grand prize, which he used to save his family farm from foreclosure.
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